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Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage

Since perishable food in private households is usually stored in refrigerators, both consumer knowledge of correct storage parameters and food handling have a major impact on food quality retention. Today’s refrigerators provide features, such as climate-controlled compartments, to improve chilled s...

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Autores principales: Wucher, Harald, Klingshirn, Astrid, Brugger, Lilla, Stamminger, Rainer, Geppert, Jasmin, Kölzer, Beate, Engstler, Antje, Härlen, Jochen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7602148/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33066503
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9101462
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author Wucher, Harald
Klingshirn, Astrid
Brugger, Lilla
Stamminger, Rainer
Geppert, Jasmin
Kölzer, Beate
Engstler, Antje
Härlen, Jochen
author_facet Wucher, Harald
Klingshirn, Astrid
Brugger, Lilla
Stamminger, Rainer
Geppert, Jasmin
Kölzer, Beate
Engstler, Antje
Härlen, Jochen
author_sort Wucher, Harald
collection PubMed
description Since perishable food in private households is usually stored in refrigerators, both consumer knowledge of correct storage parameters and food handling have a major impact on food quality retention. Today’s refrigerators provide features, such as climate-controlled compartments, to improve chilled storage performance, but former studies have shown a lack of usage and interest in such features. This paper is based on the results of an online survey with 2666 respondents from Germany. The questionnaire focused on consumer behaviour regarding the chilled storage of perishable foods, the perception of quality loss in food and consumer requirements concerning refrigerators. The novelty in the study layout was the focus on seven common refrigerator storage features. The results showed that consumers had a high awareness of food safety, resulting in short storage durations. While it was clearly indicated that the storage features were less well-known, their importance correlated with rates of food waste, underlining the potential for improvement. The survey implied that raising the awareness of storage climate parameters is a tool for nudging consumers into lower rates of food waste.
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spelling pubmed-76021482020-11-01 Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage Wucher, Harald Klingshirn, Astrid Brugger, Lilla Stamminger, Rainer Geppert, Jasmin Kölzer, Beate Engstler, Antje Härlen, Jochen Foods Article Since perishable food in private households is usually stored in refrigerators, both consumer knowledge of correct storage parameters and food handling have a major impact on food quality retention. Today’s refrigerators provide features, such as climate-controlled compartments, to improve chilled storage performance, but former studies have shown a lack of usage and interest in such features. This paper is based on the results of an online survey with 2666 respondents from Germany. The questionnaire focused on consumer behaviour regarding the chilled storage of perishable foods, the perception of quality loss in food and consumer requirements concerning refrigerators. The novelty in the study layout was the focus on seven common refrigerator storage features. The results showed that consumers had a high awareness of food safety, resulting in short storage durations. While it was clearly indicated that the storage features were less well-known, their importance correlated with rates of food waste, underlining the potential for improvement. The survey implied that raising the awareness of storage climate parameters is a tool for nudging consumers into lower rates of food waste. MDPI 2020-10-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7602148/ /pubmed/33066503 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9101462 Text en © 2020 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Wucher, Harald
Klingshirn, Astrid
Brugger, Lilla
Stamminger, Rainer
Geppert, Jasmin
Kölzer, Beate
Engstler, Antje
Härlen, Jochen
Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage
title Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage
title_full Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage
title_fullStr Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage
title_full_unstemmed Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage
title_short Tackling Food Waste: Impact of German Consumer Behaviour on Food in Chilled Storage
title_sort tackling food waste: impact of german consumer behaviour on food in chilled storage
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7602148/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33066503
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/foods9101462
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